8. Why Did John Refer To The Comforter As He Or Him Instead Of It?
As explained before,<1>Ref: (The Holy Ghost) & (Verses Where “He” & “Him” Should Be Referred To As “It”) it is a matter of grammatical usage which creates the problem. As with many languages, Greek designates nouns as masculine, feminine, or neuter. Whichever gender the noun in a sentence is, the pronoun must agree. For example, in John 14:16, Christ states, “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;” the next verse (John 14:17) identifies “the Comforter” as “the Spirit of truth.”
Because the word “Comforter” (G3875) is of masculine gender in the Greek the pronoun must agree. This is further emphasized by the repeated statements that “he shall teach you” (Jn 14:26); “he shall testify of me” (Jn 15:26); “… when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin,” (Jn 16:8); “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.” (Jn 16:13); “he shall glorify me” (Jn 16:14).
NOTE: In contrast, the verse in Romans 8:16 states “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.” “Itself” is used because the noun “Spirit” (G4151) is neuter in the Greek. The same is reflected in the book of John; (John 1:32) “And John [the Baptist] bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode on him [Christ]”.
The Comforter ( in Jn 14:26) is just another name for both the Holy Ghost (G4151) and the Spirit (G4151) of Truth.
But in the Hebrew language of the Old Testament the word “Spirit” (H7307) was generally given the feminine gender.
NOTE: The Spirit did not change gender between these Testaments (the Old & New). As you can see, grammatical usage alone is not the determining factor.
There are many scriptures which give things genders (both “living” and “lifeless”) though they are not personalities at all. Some are given “mouths” to speak. (I Cor. 12:15, 16) “If the foot shall say, because I am not the hand, I am not of the body… And if the ear shall say, because I am not the eye…” Of course, feet and ears do not have mouths to speak. They are simply personified by Paul in order to make a point. The Bible says that “The mountains and hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees shall clap their hands” (Isa. 55:12), here again mountains do not have mouths to sing with, neither do trees have hands.
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